Diplomacy is an amazing rationalist game. I’ve played it a bunch of times.
One of the other psychological aspects is avoiding committing the Typical Mind Fallacy. Don’t assume that just because you think a certain plan is in the interest of someone else, that they will see it the same way. This sounds simple, but it’s not.
If you try to set up an alliance with someone, both people will tell the other that they feel the alliance is mutually beneficial. But secretly, your partner has doubts about the benefits of the alliance. You believe that the alliance is optimal for them. And you might be right. But it does you no good unless your partner can see it, and you can’t truly know whether they see it or not.
To get your partner to understand the benefits of the alliance (and the costs of not working with you), you can try explaining it. But this can backfire. You might explain the costs of them defecting, and think that those costs will induce them to cooperate. However, once you point out the costs of defecting, your potential ally might think “hmmm, that’s actually not so bad.” They think that you think that they will be committed to the alliance because you believe that stabbing you will be costly, so they can set themselves up to stab you.
You can see lots of situations where people just don’t act in their own incentives (at least, what you think their incentives are). For instance, your neighbors might gang up on even though an even bigger alliance is forming next to them that will threaten them. However, one of your neighbors believes that once they’ve split your territory, then he will be able to get one of the members of the larger alliance to turn on each other.
Anyway, I’d be down for playing if a second game occurs.
Diplomacy is an amazing rationalist game. I’ve played it a bunch of times.
One of the other psychological aspects is avoiding committing the Typical Mind Fallacy. Don’t assume that just because you think a certain plan is in the interest of someone else, that they will see it the same way. This sounds simple, but it’s not.
If you try to set up an alliance with someone, both people will tell the other that they feel the alliance is mutually beneficial. But secretly, your partner has doubts about the benefits of the alliance. You believe that the alliance is optimal for them. And you might be right. But it does you no good unless your partner can see it, and you can’t truly know whether they see it or not.
To get your partner to understand the benefits of the alliance (and the costs of not working with you), you can try explaining it. But this can backfire. You might explain the costs of them defecting, and think that those costs will induce them to cooperate. However, once you point out the costs of defecting, your potential ally might think “hmmm, that’s actually not so bad.” They think that you think that they will be committed to the alliance because you believe that stabbing you will be costly, so they can set themselves up to stab you.
You can see lots of situations where people just don’t act in their own incentives (at least, what you think their incentives are). For instance, your neighbors might gang up on even though an even bigger alliance is forming next to them that will threaten them. However, one of your neighbors believes that once they’ve split your territory, then he will be able to get one of the members of the larger alliance to turn on each other.
Anyway, I’d be down for playing if a second game occurs.